SONOS (silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon) is a nonvolatile, trapped-charge semiconductor memory technology that provides several advantages over conventional floating-gate flash memories, including immunity from single point failures and programming at lower voltages. In contrast to floating-gate devices, which store charge on a conductive gate, SONOS devices trap charge in a dielectric layer. SONOS transistors are programmed and erased using a quantum mechanical effect known as uniform channel, modified Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. This method of programming and erase is known in the art to provide better reliability than other methods such as hot carrier injection. A SONOS transistor is an insulated-gate field effect transistor (IGFET) with a charge-trapping dielectric stack between a conventional control gate and a channel in the body or substrate of the transistor. A SONOS transistor can be fabricated as a P-type or N-type IGFET using CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) fabrication methods.
A SONOS transistor is programmed or erased by applying a voltage of the proper polarity, magnitude and duration between the control gate and the substrate. A positive gate-to-substrate voltage causes electrons to tunnel from the channel to a charge-trapping dielectric layer and a negative gate-to-channel voltage causes holes to tunnel from the channel to the charge-trapping dielectric layer. In one case, the threshold voltage of the transistor is raised and in the other case, the threshold voltage of the transistor is lowered. The threshold voltage is the gate-to-source voltage that causes the transistor to conduct current when a voltage is applied between the drain and source terminals. For a given amount of trapped charge, the direction of the threshold voltage change depends on whether the transistor is an N-type or P-type FET. However, cell disturbs may interfere with the programming of such transistors.